Luca Parmitano: back from Beyond

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano returned from his second long-duration mission to the International Space Station, known as ‘Beyond’, on 6 February 2020. In this interview at ESA’s Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, he shares some of his experiences and feelings after 201 days in orbit.

This interview was conducted late on the night Luca landed in Cologne, and is the first full interview with him in Europe since he touched down in Kazakhstan at 09:12 GMT (10:12 CET) Thursday 6 February.

Some of the highlights of Luca’s Beyond mission include becoming the third European and first Italian in command of the Space Station, leading three of four complex spacewalks to maintain the cosmic-ray-detecting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02, gaining the European record for most cumulative spacewalking time, remotely controlling a rock-collecting rover in the Netherlands, supporting over 50 European and 200 international experiments and sharing his experiences with those back on Earth through images and video links.

One of the main things Luca highlighted throughout his mission was the fragility of our planet and the need to act now for generations to come.